Description: An exiled recluse, an ancient abode in the remote west of Ireland, nightly attacks by malevolent swine-things from a nearby pit, and cosmic vistas beyond time and space.
Brief description: William Hope Hodgson was born in Blackmore End, Essex on 15 November 1877. Though distinguished as a sailor, body builder, photographer, and soldier, Hodgson is now remembered as a writer of the fantastic and macabre: The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907), The Ghost Pirates (1909), The Night Land (1912), and the occult detective stories in Carnacki, the Ghost Finder (1913). Hodgson's literary career was tragically cut short by an artillery shell at the Battle of Ypres in late April 1918.
Review Quotes:
"To commemorate this sad anniversary, the Swan River Press has issued an exceptional new edition of Hodgson's most famous novel . . . To gauge something of the novel's power, imagine a psychedelic expansion of Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'" - Michale Dirda, Washington Post
"Anyone in the future considering reprinting The House on the Borderland can now pack it in and give up the ghost, because Swan River Press has produced the best version ever. There is no need for any other, for none will match this triumph." - Dead Reckonings
"The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. Adored by HPL. A summit of Cosmic horror. Scary, disturbing and magical." - Guillermo del Toro
"Among connoisseurs of fantasy fiction William Hope Hodgson deserves a high and permanent rank . . . [The House on the Borderland is] perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson's works." - H. P. Lovecraft
"My granny thought that they occasional doses of mindless terror were just what a healthy, growing boy needed. She let me work my way along the Conan Doyles and the Vernes. Just when I thought it was all going well, she hit me with Hodgson . . . . [The House on the Borderland] was the Big Bang in my private universe as a SF/fantasy reader and, later, writer." - Terry Pratchett
"Almost from the moment that you hear the title you are infected by the novel's weird charisma . . . Knock and enter at your own liability." - Alan Moore